ESCONDIDO ELECTION PANEL, CITY CLASHING

Commission claims independence; mayor calls group ‘anti-city’

ESCONDIDO 
An independent commission tasked with dividing Escondido into geographic election districts has clashed repeatedly with city officials.

Commissioners have bickered with officials over which consultant to hire, whether they should listen to advice from the Escondido city attorney, the size of the commission’s budget and other issues.

City leaders say some commission members are injecting politics into the meetings, treating city officials as adversaries and focusing on extraneous topics.

“I’m very disappointed with the direction of the commission,” Mayor Sam Abed said Tuesday. “They haven’t done anything so far (except) show very anti-city feelings, which is counterproductive to my goal of uniting the community.”

Two commission members accused of creating turbulence — Bill Flores and Andrew Carey — say they’re simply striving to ensure the panel remains independent of city influence and gives all Escondido residents a chance to participate.

“We’ve been selected to complete a groundbreaking task for our multicultural city,” Carey said Tuesday. “We’re trying to reach out to communities that have been marginalized by city leaders.”

The commission was created to help Escondido settle a voting-rights lawsuit that claimed at-large voting in the city had diluted the political power of Latinos. Nearly 50 percent of city residents are Latino, but only two Latinos have ever been elected to the City Council.

Rather than fight the costly lawsuit, the city reluctantly agreed this spring to allow an independent commission to create four districts that would each elect their own council representative. The mayor will still be elected citywide.

Under the settlement, three retired judges appointed the seven-member panel — four Latinos and three whites — in July. Since then, the commission has had three tumultuous meetings.

The first fight centered on a city attorney’s office recommendation that the commission hire a demographic consultant that typically works for cities — not plaintiffs — in voting-rights cases.

Carey, Flores and other panel members said if the commission were truly independent, it shouldn’t choose a consultant hand-picked by the city without considering other options.

“They tried to intimidate us, and we had to fight to get additional experts for consideration,” Carey said.

After the complaints, the city invited two other consultants to give presentations, and the commission selected one of those, instead of the company the city had suggested.

Abed said the panel seemed intent on choosing someone other than the city’s recommendation, regardless of qualifications. Flores, a longtime critic of city policies related to immigration, said consultant Q2 was chosen because they seemed most capable of reaching out to the entire community.

“We viewed this decision as extremely important, and we wanted to have a choice and make the right choice,” Flores said. “The independent commission is trying to be just that — independent.”

Jim Finberg, the attorney who filed the voting-rights lawsuit and agreed to the settlement in March, praised the commission’s move.

“There was push back against the city, but rightly so,” Finberg said. “The city was being heavy-handed, so I think it was perfectly appropriate. The mayor doesn’t get to decide the commission’s budget, what expert they retain or what boundaries they propose.”

Flores and Carey say they also want the city attorney’s office to be excluded from the panel’s work.

After that suggestion, City Attorney Jeff Epp sent the commission a memo asserting they’ve exaggerated how independent they’re supposed to be. Finberg responded with his own memo, saying the commission has the right to obtain independent legal counsel.

The commission is scheduled to debate Thursday what role, if any, the city attorney’s office will play going forward.

The commission has also been unable to agree on a budget, with the proposed cost of its work rising from an estimated $110,000 to $138,000 during the three meetings held.

Abed said the turbulence has bogged down the commission, which is supposed to hold six public hearings and then agree on a rough draft of the proposed boundaries by December.

Commission Chairwoman Dana Nuesca said she’s been disappointed by the contentious atmosphere of the meetings, but added most of acrimony has been commissioners complaining about the city’s track record on race relations — not infighting among commissioners.

“I think the commission has jelled, and we’ve started to figure out how this process will work,” she said.